the sun came out on Tuesday.

the sun came out on Tuesday morning. it felt like it had been weeks since the sky was last blue and bright. it's been grey for too long, and I didn't even notice or believe it at first. the sunbeams stretch across my hardwood floors and the rainbows dance on the walls again.

I knew I needed to walk around the corner to the post office anyway to drop off the mail that I had written in the past nineteen hours. there were ten postcards for Postcrossing (eight international - Netherlands, Germany, China, Belgium, Finland, and Taiwan; two domestic - Kansas and Massachusetts), one postcard to New York, and two notes for More Love Letters.

the sun was shining, and after I put on my coat and scarf and sunglasses, I popped in my earbuds so I could continue listening to the TWLOHA podcast. this week it's an interview with Hannah Brencher, the founder of More Love Letters. I've read both of her books, so I knew a lot of the story that she shared, but it was even more incredible to get to hear her speaking the story instead of letting my eyes just read the words from a page.

I often find it hard to speak my mind and tell people how much they mean to me, but there is something so healing about sending handwritten words of hope. some days they're words that I need to hear myself. most days, I add some of my favorite quotes from a journal full of sparklets and I share other people's words too. we have a hope for the future, and a hope for each other. it feels so much better to write them down rather than to just send a text. it's so much more personal. you can hold it in your hands and know that someone took a little extra effort to connect with you.

last year during TWLOHA's suicide prevention campaign, they partnered with More Love Letters one day and you could write a letter to yourself that they would mail back to you a year later. when I received my letter in the mail this September, I cried before I even opened it because I remembered the Teresa from a year ago and her pain, but her hope for future Teresa. "you deserve all the best, but you need to be the one to give it to yourself."

and who knows, maybe if I have your address, you might someday be surprised to find some handwritten hope from me in your mailbox. or maybe you already have.

"you're both the fire and the water that extinguishes it. you're the narrator, the protagonist, and the sidekick. you're the storyteller and the story told. you are somebody's something, but you're also your you." - Turtles All the Way Down by John Green

"so many of the things you think and want to say to a person never spill out in real life. they stay locked in secret rooms inside of you. they live for tiny lifetimes inside the hearts of people who don't have the courage to say what they meant the whole time. some people leave, and go, and die, and change, without you ever getting to tell them how you truly feel about them." - If You Find This Letter by Hannah Brencher